An Integrated Approach to
Traceability for a Fresh Start
New beginnings
are exciting and
often a bit scary.
A greenfield plant is no exception.
A fresh start is an opportunity for
an optimal set up but includes the
challenge of having no historical
data on which to base
assumptions. Some of the details
may be unclear, particularly when
the plant is making a different
product from the current plants.
This was the situation of Austria
Technologie & Systemtechnik
Aktiengesellschaft (AT&S), a leader
in the high-end or high density
interconnect (HDI) printed circuit
board (PCB) market. AT&S has
been growing successfully in the
high end of the technology market.
To grow and implement its high-
tech strategy, AT&S was building a
new plant in China to manufacture
integrated circuit (IC) substrates at
the time of our original interview.
This in-process project was one
example of a trend: advanced
technology companies are
selecting and implementing
modern integrated software to
meet the challenges of increasing
customer requirements,
operational excellence and
traceability.
© 2014-17 Iyno Advisors
AT&S MES project for new facility in China
CASE STUDY By Julie Fraser, Iyno Advisors
New System Needs
As semiconductor line widths and
electronic products shrink, IC
substrates are essential
interconnections between processors
and board-level systems. The growth
potential is enormous – across a
range of applications including
mobile devices, automotive, medical
devices, industrial, and healthcare.
The advent of wearable devices will
create yet more opportunities for
AT&S and other advanced
manufacturers of substrates and
PCBs.
As they prepared for future success,
AT&S recognized that their new
substrate production facility would
need effective automated information
flows to handle all of the data for
their products. They knew the systems
in place in their six existing PCB
production facilities were not
adequate. These systems presented
two related business challenges::
 efficiency of data collection and
access to data about products
and processes
 changing traceability
requirements that require agility
to revamp information sets
The current application set also
presented some IT challenges. Other
AT&S plants had an array of systems
providing MES capabilities. These
included commercial applications
from the ERP provider, some
applications developed on IBM Notes
and homegrown software.
Traceability for the complete
genealogy record was a
particularly inefficient, error-prone
manual process, and not easily
visible.
Structured approach
AT&S set up a project to evaluate
and select an IT system, and to
model the new production plant
and implement the software. It
needed to be ready for go-live of
the new plant.
Requirements
AT&S reviewed its requirements
by conducting multiple workshops
to collect all needed inputs from
the business. Based on the
detailed analysis, “it was clear that
we needed to go in the direction
of an integrated MES.”
Team
Based on these planning
workshops, they formed a multi-
disciplinary team for the
manufacturing execution system
(MES) project. The team included
Production, Production Planning,
Engineering, Quality, Equipment
Management, Logistics, Control
Engineering, Maintenance,
Production engineering and
computer aided-manufacturing
(PE/CAM) and IT. This nine
member team put in many hours,
but was not dedicated full-time to
the project.
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  Gathering process details to
Project steps and status at interview build the model
 Building trust in the MES
Pilot & Launch System
software partner
Develop Interfaces
 Working with ERP and
Initial use
equipment partners, consultants
Create User
Training and internal departments
Feedback &
suggestions  Developing ERP interfaces
Develop Interfaces

Build Model
Software Selection
Project Plan
Requirements
Team
Success factors
“Success factors in our business
include not only the price but also
quality, environmental protection
and service.”
Alois Schacherl
Project Manager, AT&S
Project Plan
Planning for a new manufacturing
facility involves many disciplines and
considerations. Everything must come
together at the same time, creating
tremendous challenges. Schacherl
says, “Together with our partner
Critical Manufacturing we have a
phase and sprint approach to cover all
needs in a very tough time frame.”
Fine-tuning
Routine use
Improve over time
Complete
In Process
Sustain
Upcoming
Selection
AT&S initially developed a long list
of 16 possible software providers.
The core team narrowed the field
to four finalists. Those four
provided demonstrations, customer
visits and a detailed analysis for
each possible solution and vendor.
The main aspects AT&S rated in
selecting Critical Manufacturing
were: risk, functionality, technology,
flexibility and stability. Schacherl
says, “Without the right partner it’s
impossible to achieve our goals.”
Preparing for Success
AT&S was still in implementation at
the time of the original interview. To
ensure system success they were:
 Creating user training
Schacherl says: “One key to success
will be user acceptance. So we need
to provide a stable system plus well
modeled processes and a good
training concept!” The start-up and
ongoing viability of this advanced
plant will rest on all of these
elements coming together –
through an integrated software
approach.
Success
Since the original interview, AT&S
finished Phase 1 on budget and has
expanded MES use into an mSAP
HDI PCB plant. It’s also using MES at
a second plant in Austria that
produces base materials for the
substrates.
Traceability in less time
“Collecting more data for a
complete traceability record is
increasingly important. With
separate systems, this is very time
consuming – to be efficient, we
need a higher automation level.”
Alois Schacherl
Project Manager, AT&S

Iyno Advisors
Iyno Advisors combines experience, intuition, intellect, and research to focuses on how manufacturing and production companies
and their network of partners can best benefit from software applications and services.
www.iyno.com +1 508.362.3480

The Sponsor: Critical Manufacturing

Critical Manufacturing provides manufacturers in highly-complex environments with a modular, scalable manufacturing execution
and intelligence system that enables users to flexibly address market demands, increase efficiency and bolster reliability across the
supply chain while lowering TCO. The company is part of the Critical Group, a private group of companies founded in 1998 to
provide solutions for mission and business critical information systems.
For more information please visit www.criticalmanufacturing.com

© 2014-17 Iyno Advisors www.iyno.com